Albanian Police

Alleged Gulenist Selami Simsek was held in an Albanian police van without official insignia near the interior ministry on Monday evening. Photo: Gjergj Erebara/BIRN

Ardi Veliu, Albanian Police General Director, speaking during a ceremony in Tirana on 21 October 2019. Photo: LSA

Police General Director Ardi Veliu told journalists that they had identified the alleged terrorists from "sources inside the cell".

One of Albania's most wanted drug traffickers surrendered to police on Tuesday after almost three years on the run on charges of smuggling narcotics by neighboring Greece.

Multiple police operations were staged on Sunday across Albania, with officers arresting more than two dozen people suspected of drug smuggling and confiscating guns and narcotics, police and prosecutors announced on Monday in Tirana.

The head of the Serious Crime Prosecution Office, Donika Prela, said the investigation started back in 2016 and was then extended across the country.

500 Albanian policemen have refused to check on whether they are corrupt and have left the country's law enforcement system, according to a news release from the Albanian Interior Ministry.

It was a fine day for Albanian's embattled police - whose image was badly tarnished reports of close connections between senior police officers and drug-lords last year.

An investigation that lasted about two weeks ended on Wednesday with police seizing a record quantity of Colombian cocaine.

Villagers in Lazarat in southern Albania fear they are going to be prejudged and stereotyped in a new movie by the Canadian movie company Mercury Films, which is due for release in June 2017.

The small village gained worldwide notoriety for the large-scale of production of cannabis for almost a decade, during which time it was virtually off-limits to Albanian police.

The Albanian police have started to equip their forces in the field with body cameras that they must wear on appointed shifts.

Tirana is the first city where police forces have started to use their cameras. Some 584 have been bought and are now being installed into police uniforms in the city.

When the Albanian police and the American program for criminal investigation, ICITAP, opened a call to train policewomen to lead criminal operations in Albania a year ago, only 16 out of the 84 who were invited to apply showed interest.

Police arrested eight people overnight on June 27 in connection with a deadly shootout in an Albanian village known as a ?cannabis kingdom? for its industrial-scale production of the drug.